G.R. No. L-29930; April 28, 1969
BENITO ARTUYO, plaintiff-appellant, vs. FRANCISCO GONZALVES, ET AL., defendants, AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL UNDERWRITERS OF THE PHILIPPINES, INC., defendant-appellee.

FACTS

On September 5, 1956, Benito Artuyo filed a claim (Case No. L-036722) with Regional Office No. 3 of the Department of Labor against American International Underwriters of the Philippines, Inc. (the Company) and Francisco Gonzalves to recover overtime, holiday, and Sunday pay, and hospitalization expenses for services rendered from January 1950 to August 9, 1956. After procedural motions, he filed a formal complaint (Case No. 1307) on April 24, 1958. The defendants moved to dismiss on the ground of prescription, which the Regional Office granted. Artuyo appealed to the Labor Standards Commission, which reversed the dismissal. The defendants then appealed to the Court of First Instance of Manila (Civil Case No. 40544). During the hearing, the court limited Artuyo’s evidence to services rendered within three years before April 24, 1958, invoking Section 7-A of Commonwealth Act No. 444 , as amended. Artuyo’s petition for certiorari and mandamus to the Supreme Court (G.R. No. L-19505) was certified to the Court of Appeals, which ruled in his favor, allowing evidence from January 1950. The Supreme Court denied the defendants’ petition for review. Upon remand, the Court of First Instance dismissed Civil Case No. 40544 on November 29, 1963, for lack of appellate jurisdiction, following the Carominas ruling that the labor agencies had no original jurisdiction. Consequently, on February 15, 1964, Artuyo filed the present complaint (Civil Case No. 56254) with the Court of First Instance. The defendants moved to dismiss, alleging lack of cause of action against Gonzalves and prescription against the Company. The lower court denied the motion on April 15, 1964. After filing an answer, the defendants moved for reconsideration on August 12, 1965. The lower court, on August 31, 1965, reconsidered and dismissed the complaint. Artuyo appealed.

ISSUE

1. Whether the lower court’s order of April 15, 1964, denying the motion to dismiss, had become final before the defendants moved for its reconsideration on August 12, 1965.
2. Whether Artuyo had no cause of action against defendant Francisco Gonzalves.
3. Whether Artuyo’s action against the Company was barred by the statute of limitations.

RULING

1. No. The order of April 15, 1964, denying the motion to dismiss, was interlocutory in nature. Being non-appealable independently of a final judgment on the merits, it could not and did not become final.
2. The lower court erred in dismissing the complaint against Gonzalves. While the complaint alleged Gonzalves acted as an agent of the Company, Gonzalves’s own answer indicated Artuyo’s services were engaged in his personal capacity at times and described a peculiar employment status where Artuyo drove for Company officials, received a Christmas bonus, and participated in employee group insurance. These circumstances made it not indubitable that Artuyo had no cause of action against Gonzalves. The motion to dismiss on this ground should have been denied without prejudice to resolving the issue in a decision on the merits.
3. No, the action against the Company was not barred by prescription. The prescriptive period for the action was three years under Section 7-A of Commonwealth Act No. 444 , as amended by Republic Act No. 1993 . However:
a. The filing of the initial claim with the Regional Office on September 5, 1956, interrupted the prescriptive period, even though the office was later held to lack jurisdiction, as established in Tiberio v. Manila Pilots Assn. and subsequent cases.
b. Deducting the periods when the proceedings were pending (from September 5, 1956, to around March 1957 for the initial case, and from April 24, 1958, to November 29, 1963, for the subsequent case and appeals), the three-year period had not expired when the present case was filed on February 15, 1964.
c. Furthermore, Section 7-A contained a proviso that actions already commenced before the effectivity of Republic Act No. 1993 (June 22, 1957) were not affected by the three-year period. Artuyo’s claim, pending since September 5, 1956, fell within this saving clause.
The appealed order of dismissal was reversed, and the case was remanded to the lower court for further proceedings.